No Attempt of Political Persecution Has Ever Happened in Any Country: Aram Vardevanyan

Aram Vardevanyan, a member of Samvel Karapetyan's legal team, made a post on his Facebook page, stating, "Democratic values are either genuine or formal. The most important aspect of these values is an truly independent judicial system. A simple mechanism for evaluating the real judicial system is the question of whether to choose or reject pretrial detention in criminal cases. In our country, those in power speak of democratic values, but in reality, they fear those values. The Facebook justice initiated by the head of the executive branch on June 17 regarding Samvel Karapetyan was unprecedented and anti-democratic. No such attempt at political persecution has ever happened in any country, and predictably, he has been detained since June 18."

According to Vardevanyan, under conditions of democratic values, detention, which is the most extreme measure (ultima ratio), cannot be applied so frequently and without justification, and so disproportionately. "Any judge or prosecutor in a European country can be asked how many cases they know where a person 1) has not been previously expressed, 2) has never hidden from investigation, 3) has no motive to obstruct the case (let's remember that the accusation is solely based on a video-recorded interview), 4) is accused of a medium severity alleged crime is detained," it is noted in the statement. Vardevanyan's answer is clear: there are no such cases. Once such a case occurs, that European country would simply cease to have any relation to democratic values.